Nigel Nicolson

Nigel Nicolson OBE ( born January 19, 1917 in London, † 23 September 2004 Sissinghurst Castle, Kent, England ) was a British author, publisher and politician.

Life and work

Nicolson was the son of the writers Sir Harold Nicolson - married couple and Vita Sackville -West. He had a brother, the art historian Benedict Nicolson. The children grew initially in the county of Kent, near Knole House, the birthplace of the mother and then lived at Sissinghurst Castle, where the parents had created a famous garden. Nicolson was sent away early from home and taught at the private school Summer Fields in Summertown, Oxford, followed by Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. During World War II he served in the Grenadier Guards, of which he later wrote a historical account.

In 1945 he founded, together with the journalist George Weidenfeld the publisher Weidenfeld and Nicolson, whose managing director, he was from 1948 to 1992. Although his father was a politician of the Labour Party, to Nicolson actively engaged in the Conservative Party. In 1952 he became a deputy in the British Parliament. He was, however uncomfortable for the Tories and voted with the Labour Party for the abolition of the death penalty and contained in a 1956 made ​​by the government regarding the Suez crisis of confidence, which developed a dispute between Nicolson and his constituents, the the result of the conference venue, seaside resort of Bournemouth, Bournemouth Affair was designated as: Nicolson's constituency demanded his resignation and wrote a petition to the Prime Minister, after which there was a vote. For Nicolson detriment to his political ambitions crossed with its interests as a publisher: The simultaneous publication of Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita in its publisher caused a scandal; he lost the vote and was asked to resign from his political posts in the elections in 1959. With the end of his political career, Nicolson devoted primarily to writing, wrote biographies and wrote columns for the Sunday Telegraph.

In 1973 published book Portrait of a Marriage ( Portrait of a Marriage: Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West; German translation 1982) in which he revealed the open marriage and promiscuous love life of his eccentric parents based on diaries and letters, became a social scandal and was a bestseller in the UK and U.S. sales lists in no time. The delicate work revealed especially the bisexual inclinations of the mother Vita Sackville- West, which maintained amorous friendships with writers Violet Trefusis and Virginia Woolf. In addition, he published the diaries of his father and wrote, among other biographies and reflections on Jane Austen, Mary Curzon or Virginia Woolf. His autobiography, published in 1997 under the title Nicolson Long Life. In 2000, he was honored for his services to the Kingdom of the Order of the British Empire.

From 1953 to 1970 Nicolson was married to Philippa Janet Tennyson d' Eyncourt. The marriage produced three children: Rebecca, a publisher, Juliet Nicolson, a historian and the son of Adam, a writer.

Publications (selection)

  • The Harold Nicolson Diaries and Letters 1907-1964 (1966 ) Phoenix, Reprint 2005, ISBN 0-7538-1997- X
  • Portrait of a Marriage: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson (1973 ) University of Chicago Press, reprint 1998, ISBN 0-226-58357-0
  • The National Trust Book of Great Houses of Britain. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1978, ISBN 0-297-77411-5
  • Kent; with photographs by Patrick Sutherland, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1990 reprint, ISBN 0 - 297-79602 -X
  • A Long Life: Memoirs. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1997, ISBN 0-297-81322-6
  • Mary Curzon. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, new edition 1998, ISBN 0-7538-0201-5

German translations

  • Harold Nicolson: Diaries and Letters; Preface and translation by Helmut Lindemann, German Bücherbund, Stuttgart 1970
  • Portrait of a Marriage: Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West; unabridged edition in German translation, Ullsteinhaus 1996, ISBN 3-548-30387-0
  • Virginia Woolf ( Biographical passions); German translation by Monika Noll, Claassen, 2002, ISBN 3-546-00293-8
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